Edmonia moves her pencil to mirror the silhouettes
of animals and trees, but a flat world under her hands
offers no haven. She looks out the one window
in their room, then rests her head on the desk.
The wood is dark from letters she burned,
nicked from pen knives. She pushes aside
Ruth’s books, an inkwell, and a few stones
that sparkle with mica and marks
that look like small footprints.
Memory skates around thoughts:
It’s not my fault.
Of course it’s my fault.
She can’t keep her balance.
She shouldn’t have told Ruth she spoke with Seth.
Is she being punished for breaking
her promise not to tell?
Or should she have said more?
Memory won’t mind borders.
Who said: Drink? Who said: Stop?
She wants to sleep, cross the lines between
truth and forgetting, daytime and dreaming.
She hears a knock. Harriet opens the door.
Father Keep is with Mr. Langston,
the colored lawyer who knows President Lincoln!
Edmonia, they want to see you!
Edmonia hurries to the library, curtsies to the man
she heard speak on the courthouse steps the day
John Brown was hanged. She’s forgotten
Mr. Langston’s words about the freedom fighter,
but not the way hundreds of white folks looked up
and listened to the tall, well-dressed lawyer.
Your client, Miss Lewis, Father Keep introduces her.
I consider myself to be representing this academy and college,
Mr. Langston replies. If it were not for Oberlin,
I could never have become a lawyer. If this young lady
is convicted of attempted murder, who would send
their children here? But I intend to win this case
and keep everything out of the newspapers, too.
We’re fortunate to have an editor in town who’s sympathetic,
but I hate to think what they’d do with this in Cleveland.
Cleveland. Oh, dear. Father Keep nudges up his spectacles.
I didn’t do anything! Edmonia cries.
That’s just the kind of outburst I can’t have in court.
Mr. Langston raises a well-groomed hand, proof
he doesn’t pick cotton the way his mother did,
evidence that times can change. If all goes as I plan,
you won’t testify. Silence is the best defense.
I have to tell everyone what happened.
Can she? She’s spoken English for years,
but she’s not fluent with words that fall
between Yes and No.
She has a grasp of words
for action and what can be held,
but not Maybe or Sometimes, words
used to smudge or straddle fact and falsehoods.
I have to talk to Helen and Christine.
Make them remember I was their friend.
We’re not dealing with rational people, Miss Lewis.
Yesterday, Mr. Ennes chased me with his rifle.
Fortunately, he has terrible aim.
Christine’s father tried to shoot you?
Father Keep stands up. John, my dear Lord!
What did the sheriff do?
I didn’t report it. Union soldiers in the South
withstand more than one misfired bullet.
But this isn’t a war, Father Keep says.
I can understand how it might feel to be afraid that
your daughter is dying. Some good people in this town
have sent sons to war. They may never come back.
Townsfolk think they’ve made enough sacrifices
for our people, and are angry that some seem ungrateful.
But I’m going to win this case. Mr. Langston’s back
is perfectly straight as he turns to Edmonia.
They want you in jail until you appear in court,
though there aren’t cells for young ladies.
I promised them you won’t leave here until the trial,
except for church on Sunday mornings.
Rumor already binds her breath.
She won’t ask what will happen if he fails.